Nonsense of Direction

According to Facebook, Tai Po is near the airport on Lantau island, more or less diagonally opposite its real location..  I can only assume they get their maps from Apple, not Google.  Still, that should make it quicker to get home from the airport next time I land there!

Young gifted and cracked

We are seeing a bizarre proliferation recently of ever more pro-Beijing organisations seemingly dedicated to telling us that we are too stupid to choose our own leaders.  It appears to be a rule that these should have as long and unwieldy a name as possible.  Last night's news reported on a public forum organised by the Love China-Hong Kong Alliance of Youth Cultural Societies.  The main "youth" speaking at this appeared to be long-time Beijing lackey Ho Sai-chu (born 1937).  Of the other three youth representatives on the platform, one had grey hair, one was balding, and even the youngest-looking didn't appear to be less than 40.  From the brief shot we saw of what seemed to be a minuscule audience, few of them appeared to be younger than 80.  (Many old folks in Hong Kong treat these kind of public forums as free entertainment.)

So no youth there, and not much sign of Love either.  Are we really supposed to take these pathetic organisations seriously?

Diddums

Did you see the mainland tourist on last night's news blubbing like a baby just because his tour bus was delayed by an hour?  Apparently this puerile display of over-the-top emotion was in support of his claim for compensation of RMB3,000 per head for the delay (the amount they paid for the entire 5-day tour to Hong Kong).  On that basis, New World First Bus owes me $750 for the agonising 15-minute wait I had to endure in Hennessy Road on Wednesday.

Song of the day here.

Politician Gets Hands Dirty Shock

Good to see Hong Kong's politicians doing some honest work for a change!

Videos here and here.

The Trinity of Reverse Evolution

Further proof of the decline of the South China Morning Post

From their website today:

Syria dismisses US, UK chemical weapons claims as lie

The 46-year-old, one of the European Union’s youngest prime ministers, is then expected to unveil his programme in a parliamentary session on Monday, before the government is put to a confidence...

10:44AM

Does anyone at the paper actually read what they put out?

Sharing the Love

Fool me once, shame on you
Fool me twice, shame on me

With Chinese officials constantly emphasising the importance of Hong Kong showing love for the Motherland, the latest earthquake in Sichuan Province has thrown up some interesting developments.

Hong Kong people have traditionally been quick to donate generously to victims of past natural disasters in China.  However, the government's proposal to repeat its massive donation of local taxpayers' money following the previous Sichuan earthquake was not so readily accepted this time around.  Having seen how much of their hard-earned cash ended up in the pockets of corrupt local officials last time - most notoriously, a school built with HK$2 million of our money was soon afterwards demolished to make way for a commercial development - Hong Kong people want guarantees that the money will reach those who really need it.

Ever eager to score brownie points in Beijing, the government perhaps did not stop to think that putting this donation on LegCo's agenda for approval would give the Council an opportunity to air complaints of corruption on the mainland, a sensitive topic which would usually be out of bounds for discussion.  Naturally the pan-democrats seized that opportunity in yesterday's Finance Committee meeting, leaving the DAB with the awkward choice of either seeming to show a lack of love for the Motherland by rejecting the donation proposal, or seeming to condone corruption there by accepting it unconditionally.  In the end no vote was taken and the issue remains unresolved.

However, also as usual, the pan-dems missed an opportunity to do better.  If they were smarter, they would have painted their objections as showing their strong support for President Xi Jinping's recent calls for a determined fight against corruption in the Party, thereby casting anyone who disagreed as an enemy of the Beijing leadership.  But perhaps that was too imaginative for them.

In fact, the pan-democrats seem to be letting the pro-Beijing parties hijack the mantle of "love" by default., like the "Voice of Loving Hong Kong" group which first came to public notice by lovingly trying to silence any other voices at a public forum on democracy.  Again the pan-dems need more imagination.  Instead of "The Alliance for True Democracy", why not call their new united(?) front group "Love Hong Kong, Love China, Love Democracy"?  Don't give those who are trying to ruin Hong Kong a monopoly on claiming to love it.

Song for today.

My Country Wrong or Wrong

The surprising thing about today's SCMP poll question - "Do you agree with judge Kemal Bokhary that critics of Beijing can also be patriots of China?" = is not that 93% answered yes, but that as many as 7% were stupid enough to answer No.  Does the CCP really have that many readers of the English-language media in its ranks?

The simple fact is that if you love your country (whichever one it is), you want it to improve.  This can only happen if people point out where it's going wrong, so the errors can be corrected.  And if you seriously think that any country is so perfect that it's above criticism, then you need an urgent  reality transplant.